My immediate family consists only of myself and my parents. Many people ask me if it is horrible being an only child, but I have to say that most of the time I thoroughly enjoy it. There is a lot of privacy, no younger or older siblings to annoy you and you get more presents during the holidays. My parents own their own business, a market research firm. I find their job to be very boring for the most part, but once in a while they come across an interesting project. My dad is practically a historian. He always has his nose in a book, usually something regarding World War II or else a political treatise of some sort. My mom is also an avid reader, but not nearly as much as my dad. She is very involved in the arts, which is unfortunate because our tastes differ so much. She loves abstract art while I maintain that it is simply people who can’t draw looking to make money through some sort of alleged deeper meaning in the piece. I have only one grandparent, my grandmother on my mother’s side. I also have an aunt and two uncles, however I do not see any of these relatives very often because they live in different states, some in Oregon, others in New York.

Cheers,
Halsey

I don’t have a job right now. I’m hoping to get one over the summer, however, at a local grocery store named Trader Joe’s. I don’t really want to apply for a job, but my parents are giving me evil stares whenever I complain about not having enough money, so I figure this is the only way to rid myself of those. While I haven’t had a paying job, I have done some volunteer work. A few summer’s ago I worked in a state senator’s office as an intern, answering the phones, and mailing a lot of letters-grunt work for the most part. Last summer, I worked at a thrift store whose profits go to the local animal shelter. I did a lot of work that a person would do as an employee of a department store, so I feel it was a valuable, albeit boring, experience.

Cheers,
Halsey

I have a job at Office Depot that I work at from Thursday through Sunday. Usually, I receive hours for about two days of the week and am free the other two days. I work as a cashier, and the job has become much easier over time. When I first started out, I felt completely lost! Thankfully, the manager was nice and helped guide me through the process of making a transaction, supervising me during the first few times that I exchanged money. Working at this store is great; I receive a large employee discount, my coworkers are great, and the duties assigned to me are varied and interesting.

One requirement for my job is that I wear a blue, collared shirt and black slacks. They look something like this:

Sorry I couldn’t find a better picture of someone wearing these clothes! I also wear some black shoes and dark socks, along with a pin that bears my name and a cheesy little flag denoting that I am just a trainee. The customers so far have been nice and understanding with me, since this is my first job. However, I’m learning quickly and I hope to get rid of that yellow flag before the month is up!

My family consists of my mom (not pictured), my dad, my sisters, and my cat (not pictured either). D

The girl in the center is my sister, Jennifer. The girl on the right is my other sister, Laura. They’re currently going to middle school, and they’re slightly rowdy because they always invite their friends over to play games and party. My dad, to the left, brings me to school every day and sometimes helps me out with math homework when I’m struggling with a problem. We used to go to the movies every Saturday, but ever since second semester of school started, I haven’t really had the time to enjoy a good movie with some tasty popcorn. Instead, we occasionally rent a movie and watch it at home. My dad has a movie pass so he is able to rent an unlimited number of movies so long as he returns them within three days and continues to pay the monthly fee. I tried to convince him to use Netflix instead because the service is cheaper, but he doesn’t really want to go through the hassle of mailing videos back to the company whenever he is done watching them.

My sisters sometimes annoy me, but by and large we get along. They don’t bother me much when I’m studying, but when I try to take the television away from them when I have a rare opportunity to kick back and relax, we sometimes argue over what show to watch. My sisters have become skilled in cooking dinner for the family, so my parents are able to work on other things or just play games while Laura boils water for spaghetti or prepares meat for cooking in the oven. I help my sisters at times with their homework and correct their spelling errors, and they, in turn, lend me money when I run short.

Whenever we are really bored, my dad and I often take a trip down to Fry’s Electronics, a store that sells computers, software, and cool gadgets like a talking robot dog or a video game dance pad. The store is all the way in Palo Alto, the same city where Stanford University resides and a hub for high-tech people. We often stop by a Vietnamese bakery that has spring rolls, which are made of rice paper wrapped around rice vermicelli, shrimp, and mint leaves. The taste of this food is divine; if you ever get the chance to try one of these rolls, go ahead and have a bite!

For a while, in our old house, my sisters had to share a room. They didn’t really argue much about it, but they were undeniably elated to hear that we were moving into a house in which they would each have their own space to live in and put their stuff. Today, my sisters live in different rooms with totally different “themes.” Jennifer has a room full of stuffed animals and a laptop computer, and the whole aura one gets while standing in that space is one of comfort and coziness. To contrast, Laura’s room is more spartan; she lives in a place that has a few posters of some of her favorite animals scattered across the walls and a carpeted floor that is free of debris.

Outside of our nuclear family, I have many, many uncles and aunts. One of them lives nearby, in San Jose, with his daughter. His other daughter, my cousin, currently goes to UCLA, the alma mater of my Spanish teacher I also have an aunt and grandmother who lives near Irvine.

Hi Clara. I don’t have a “true” job but I do make money from babysitting (watching other people’s kids). I make a lot of money from it, and I have two families that I babysit for regularly. I usually babysit about 2 or 3 times a week, but it is not always consistent. It is nice to get paid in cash, but at the same time it is bad for me because I have trouble saving my money when I have cash. When I used to work at a restaurant, I received paychecks instead of cash, and I was able to save all of my paychecks since I just simply put them in my bank account. Oh well! One of the families I babysit has two kids. One is an eight -year-old boy and the other is a baby girl. They are adorable! And in the other family, there is a five-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl. They are very cute! But kids can also be very troublesome! But kids will be kids. I like babysitting though because I feel like I get paid to play with some kids. Do you have a job? If you do, do you like it?

I live with my mom and dad and my two younger sisters. I also have two older half-sisters. Starting with the oldest, their ages are twenty nine, twenty four, fifteen, and twelve. I have a pretty big immediate family. OH, and I also have a nephew who is nine years old. I also have three cousins who live in Arizona with my aunt from my dad’s side. Everyone on my mom’s side lives in Cambodia so I have never met them before. Isn’t that crazy!? Her parents died when she was young. But my dad’s parents are still alive and live in Florida. I love going to my grandma’s house because she lives 3 blocks away from the beach! So when I’m there, I walk to the beach a lot. I love it because the water is soooo warm compared to the beach water here, like in Half Moon Bay or San Francisco. How is your family?
-Linda

Hell again!

My family is a generic America family, apart from the fact that we are not white. I have one father, one mother, one sister, and two goldfish. My dad is an engineer, my mom is a hairstylist, and my sister is a first grade teacher for a private school. My extended family is huge! My dad has eleven brothers and sisters, and my mom has 6 brothers. However, all of my mom’s family lives in Indonesia because it’s quite easy to make/keep money there, and most of my aunts/uncles on my dad’s side live here because my grandpa sent them all here when they were in college, so I am closer with the family on my father’s side.

The family on my father’s side is very strange. My aunts and uncles are very close, but are very war-ish at the same time. When my grandmother was dying, and they had to decide certain things, my aunt threw a 10 pound vase at my uncle, and an hour later, they were sharing noodles for lunch. They are wierd.

My family is also very split on very different things. 3 of my aunts/uncles are Buddist, 6 are catholic, and the rest ar Christian. They are also very split on politics. My dad, and about 5 of my aunts and uncles vote democratic, and the rest of my relatives are very Republican. Republican is the conservative party in the United States, and the Democrats are the liberal party in the United States.

I have a very interesting family, but I am very appreciative of them because they are very entertaining, and they care about eachother a lot.

-Jason